Welcome Session

Title: Welcome & Overview- What is an Everyday Neighborhood?
Instructor: Dr. Nancey Green Leigh, Georgia Tech, College of Architecture, City and Regional Planning Program
Description: This welcome session will introduce and discuss the concept of Everyday Neighborhoods and its component parts.

Session Proceedings: Catherine Ross introduced the seminar by setting the theme:  In practice we will be recreating our world by 2030.  If we do not want to duplicate what we do today, how do we do better?  This conference grew out of a 2004 studio class given by Drs. Ross and Green Leigh investigating the redevelopment potential of City Hall East, a former Sears warehouse and distribution center in Atlanta

The City Hall East studio class looked at “Nowhere Zones,” which are characterized as underperforming or deteriorated holes in the urban fabric that divide neighborhoods and lack identity.  The studio class posited that Nowhere Zones have the potential to be transformed into Everyday Neighborhoods through creative infill and redevelopment approaches.  Everyday Neighborhoods are needed to counter a retreat from public life and some of the illness of rapid gentrification.  Unlike ‘communities of interest,’ the gated communities of today, Everyday Neighborhoods are like older neighborhoods, which fostered random connections.  In short, Everyday Neighborhoods should be ‘communities of place’ that encourage daily interaction with a wide variety of people and promote active civic participation. 

The City Hall East project worked to identify a framework for Everyday Neighborhoods and in so doing, developed six key elements of such neighborhoods:  equity and social mobility, sustainability, pedestrian-friendly, mixed use/mixed income, lifecycle community and appropriate urban design.  Communities that incorporate these elements can mitigate the inequities and social displacement that can result from gentrification. 

Session I

Title: Session I- Mixed-Use and Mixed-Income Development: financing the right mix
Instructors:
- Gates Kellett Dunaway, Senior Project Manager, Progressive Redevelopment, Inc.
- David Green, Lord, Aeck & Sargent
Description: This session will explore the "mixed-use" and "mixed-income" concepts as well as the financing mechanisms necessary to make them economically viable.

Session Proceedings: David Green highlighted the importance of starting with the basics for developing effective mixed use and mixed income development.  First lay out the framework of streets, blocks and parcels and then define/identify public and private spaces.  After this framework is in place, land use planning can be strategized.  In the same vein, rigid requirements for percentages of the components of the mix may end up being detrimental.  Once the key framework is in place, then natural processes can act to bring about the proper development mix. 

Gates Kellett Dunaway focused on one successful development project in the Oakhurst neighborhood of Atlanta.  Progressive Redevelopment, Inc., which concentrates on developing affordable rental housing, undertook the redevelopment of the Scottish Rite hospital building in the small commercial heart of Oakhurst.  The project was distinguished by a high level of community involvement and support, and by the complexity of its financing, which included nine different funding sources.  At completion, the redevelopment involved affordable housing, accessible housing, civic space, and commercial and retail space.  There is good reason to believe that the redevelopment has served as a catalyst for additional commercial development and revitalization in the Oakhurst neighborhood.

Session II

Title: Session II- Creating Livable Places: sustainable communities for all
Instructors:

- Dennis Hertlein, AIA, partner and project principal, Surber Barber Choate & Hertlein Architects, P.C.
- Dr. Dory Sabata, Research Scientist, Center for Assistive Technology & Environmental Access (CATEA)
Description: This session discusses the elements that make places livable including the importance of lifecycle communities and sustainable design.

Session Proceedings: Dory Sabata addressed her talk to the needs of the disabled and elderly population.  Disability results from a mismatch between the environment and the person.  We can modify the environment to help alleviate that mismatch.  Dr. Sabata identified two concepts:  Visitability – designing so that those with disabilities have the power to visit other locations freely, and Universal Design – designing for all potential users to the greatest extent possible. 

Dennis Hertlein provided the practitioner’s perspective on designing denser communities.  The combination of the projected increase in US population, changes in household composition, public health and environmental concerns are creating a market for denser, intown living.  Mr. Hertlein walked the seminar attendees through a series of successful adaptive reuse (recycling and reusing older buildings) and infill (reusing underutilized sites) projects.  Each illustrated the importance of customizing each project’s design to the individual site characteristics and soliciting and utilizing community input at the earliest stages of the project.

Session III

Title: Lunch/Session III- Equity and Social Mobility
Keynote Speaker: Victor Rubin, Ph.D., Director of Research, PolicyLink
Description: This session will explore why equity and social mobility are vital to the success of communities, but are so often omitted from the (re)development equation.

Session Proceedings: Victor Rubin focused on the challenges particular to those urban areas that are not experiencing rapid growth and gentrification.  Often these are inner ring suburbs or core cities that are experiencing economic stagnation in combination with sprawl, a combination that is characterized by abandoned property, weakened housing markets, segregation and concentrated poverty.  Including all of society into economic society is good for competitiveness; it is not just a moral issue.  Victor Rubin’s work with PolicyLink has identified six Action Items that can help stimulate economic inclusion and counter social inequities, four of which are relevant to creating Everyday Neighborhoods.  First, leverage place-based anchor institutions, second, improve mobility through equitable transportation policy, third, reclaim vacant properties to promote sustainable regional development and fourth, make all neighborhoods into communities of opportunity.  These four Action Items were then illustrated though a discussion of developing a new grocery store in San Diego.

Session IV

Title: Session IV- Creating Pedestrian-Friendly and Transit-Oriented Communities
Instructors:
- David Whyte, Kimley-Horn & Associates, Inc.
- Dr. Michael Dobbins, College of Architecture, Georgia Tech
Description: This session explores the familiar concepts of "pedestrian-friendly" and "transit-oriented" development highlighting the necessary design elements and zoning regulatory needs for creating communities that are livable for all.

Session Proceedings: Mike Dobbins led off by noting that a development that is pedestrian-friendly is not necessarily transit-oriented, but a transit-oriented development will always be pedestrian-friendly.  He then gave a brief history of the origins of transit-oriented development generally, and the institution of transit-oriented developments in Atlanta.  Mike Dobbins explained that neighborhoods originate the demand for pedestrian-friendly communities.  He outlined many of the tools available to neighborhoods for increasing their pedestrian quality and discussed certain land use and design features that create reasons to want to walk, rather than reasons to not want to walk.

David Whyte elaborated on the pedestrian features introduced by Dobbins.  He noted that features that make a site pedestrian-friendly go beyond sidewalks.  There are non-physical features such as visual interest, safety, convenience and scale to influence the pedestrian nature of a community.  David Whyte then discussed what is meant by transit- oriented development, focusing in particular on a project in development in Chicago’s North Side.

Session V

Title: Wrap-Up/Session V- Building Everyday Neighborhoods
Instructors:
- Emory Morsberger, Chairman, The Morsberger Group
- Dr. Catherine L. Ross, Harry West Professor and Director of the Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development, Georgia Tech
Description: This wrap-up session will revisit many of the concepts presented throughout the day and will discuss in greater detail some successful Everyday Neighborhoods.

Session Objectives: Emory Morsberger wound up the day of presentations by describing some of the projects his company, the Morsberger Group, has been actively developing and promoting in the Atlanta metropolitan region.  These include the revitalization of Lawrenceville and the redevelopment of City Hall East, bringing the group full circle to the initial work of the City Hall East studio.  Mr. Morsberger also discussed two projects still in the conceptual stage.  The first is the introduction of a rail service running from Athens, Georgia to downtown Atlanta – the so-called ‘Brain Train’ that would connect the major universities and colleges of the Atlanta area.  The second is a proposed revitalization of the south central business district of Atlanta.